It was strange, given how awkward I'd expected things to be, but I felt more comfortable, safer, with Locke and Celes than I did with anyone other than the kids. I could just exist, without worrying that they'd notice a change in me – and that was strange too, since they'd known me so well once, but maybe I thought time would have fixed that, or maybe I thought they knew me well enough that they wouldn't mind the change. Maybe I sensed they'd give me space to act strange, but I didn't think of it that way.
I just felt at home with them. It was best when they were both around, when it was all three of us; otherwise I'd talk too much, or be too quiet, and feel strange about it. It was better, in some ways, being with them than with my family, because my oldest were getting restive, or "turning normal" as Kat put it. The boys seldom spoke, to me or anyone else, and Isabella alternated cheerfulness and intense moodiness, bursting into tears or screaming at me about chores. "Normal," Kat insisted, whenever I shot her an accusing look.
Of course, the younger kids didn't have those problems. They acted normal as I recognized it, getting into my things, attempting to get themselves killed in any number of mundane ways, but acting as I expected, and it was comforting. I knew they wouldn't know or care about my past, unconditionally. I was their mother, part of the furniture of their lives – the only stable thing they'd had for a while – and they wouldn't look for cracks in my armor.
I still kept busy, and I felt like I was getting better after the initial shock; I wasn't dwelling on my memories so much, and I was able to get through an entire council meeting. I was drenched with sweat afterwards, but elated as if I'd just run a race. We hadn't actually done much – we'd drafted a few official letters, offering to aid several small communities in starting postal and records offices, and we'd debated a proposal for building a railroad line through to Mobliz without reaching a conclusion – but I'd made it through, even with all those eyes on me, even with Martin beaming proudly at me whenever I did much of anything. Locke and Celes listened patiently as I recapped the entire meeting for them at high speed, with commentary. They'd been there, and they didn't realize why this would be any special accomplishment for me, but they were good enough not to say either of those things out loud.
I took up the new project of transcribing the Queen's diary. It wasn't much – just translating from her handwriting to mine – but I could standardize the spelling, and fill in some blanks. The book was amazingly well preserved for its age, but it was still brittle, and pages had begun to fragment even as we read it in the cave. It was hard to justify copying all of it, I pointed out to them, as I worked on it one afternoon in the kitchen, stew bubbling away on the stove. "I know she's a queen, but she's boring."
"In what way?"
"All this talk about her normal life. I know it's fascinating when it's you, and sometimes she makes these comments about people in the court that are really funny once you think about them, but I don't see why anyone would really be interested."
"You'd be amazed," Celes said.
"What kind of daily life details? Overseeing servants?"
"Hell, she plans the meals sometimes, helps cook. I didn't know queens did that." Edgar had once proposed to me, casually. 'The castle will have room for your brood and you wouldn't have to cook,' he'd suggested, and I'd laughed and suggested he join me in my cave instead. At that time we hadn't really discussed the likelihood of my death. "She talks over royal stuff with her husband. She seems like she'd be a pretty interesting person if she were alive, but lists of fabrics..."
"Oh, Gibson would be in ecstasy. She lives for this kind of thing. Hamley's into the big picture, who was alive when and what they worshipped. Molly's always trying to figure out what grains they grew."
"Molly?" I asked.
"Yeah, thought I mentioned her. Anyway, go on."
"Um, there wasn't much, you just jumped in with that."
"Oh."
"How much progress have you made?" Celes asked helpfully.
"They haven't even declared war," I said. "I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life. How old was she again?"
"Heaven knows. I guess Hale might too, but it'd be a while before he got my letter. Celes? You any better judge? She looked a little like you."
"She was marble, Locke. Should I be offended?"
I turned back to the page, listening to them tease back and forth across the table. The ink was faded, the words going brown on the brown page as she listed the gifts – of grain, wine, cloth, and in only one case a ring – she was giving that winter. Her husband was giving swords, armor, and chargers to his knights. He gave Odin a helmet. She gave things people could use, to— "Locke, what's a villeyn?"
"Uh, simple farmer... a freeman, not a serf, I think, but I'm not sure."
"Okay," I said, and made a query mark on my own page by the word. "I'll worry about it later." I turned another page. "Did you know they had Espers as slaves?" One had been given to her husband as a gift, and he'd given it to her, which suggested war might be coming. Otherwise, what would be the point? A slave like that would be more natural as a bodyguard than as a servant. The slave crown made the queen uneasy. I still didn't know her name. It was understandable that she wouldn't mention it, since she thought of the diary as private and she knew who she was, but I would have liked to know.
I'd just meant it as another of those tidbits of information, but then I realized neither of them was speaking. When I looked up, Locke had stopped drumming his fingers on the table, and Celes held the spoon of sugar suspended over her tea. "I guess it's where the slave crown came from," I added, quietly.
"It's practically traditional, then," Celes said, a touch bitterly, as she stirred the tea. The clinking of spoon on china was the only sound in the room. Outdoors, I heard a bird cry.
"How do you know?" Locke asked.
"She calls it the Esper crown," I said. Celes pushed her chair back with a scrape, took her tea with her to the window. "I think the Phoenix was the one she had," I said. "Wasn't Phoenix a female? I think she might have been related to me. It's hard to know, there was so much my father didn't have time to tell me." I could say that easily, now, so obviously I could eventually adapt to things that consumed my thoughts at first. That was good to know.
"Sounded female," Locke said, barely audible, and I felt a quick crush of guilt, remembering that he'd know, and why he'd know. Maybe I was better off never taking anything lightly.
"I'm sorry," I said, and Celes turned, looking almost angry.
"What is there for you to be sorry for?" she demanded. "You didn't do anything."
"I just meant... I...." The pause stretched long enough to become uncomfortable, and no one interrupted, so I had to find words after all. "You're both upset, and it's because of things I brought up..." She shook her head, looked over her shoulder at the window, as if she wanted to climb through it. I felt like I'd break into pieces if I didn't tell someone, so finally, very quietly, I said, "I'm starting to remember."
When I looked up she was staring at me, and the look on her face reminded me of the sinking sensation I'd had when my father's magicite grew too hot to touch. I glanced away, at Locke, and he just looked confused. I tried watching the table. "I had an affair with Kefka," I said. I wanted to add, 'didn't I?' or turn to Celes, ask her what happened, but I couldn't even lift my head, couldn't bear to know for sure that their eyes were on me.
"What do you mean?" Locke asked, blankly. "You don't... you aren't just confused?" I shook my head, looked up at Celes, saw the confirmation in her face. "Were you in love with him?" he asked.
"No!" I said, and I thought I saw disapproval from him, or disgust. I crossed my arms, pressing them against my stomach.
"It wasn't an affair, Locke," she said. "That sort of implies she had a choice."
"But I did! I agreed, I—" I'd been so stupid. I'd thought maybe I could get some leverage, that maybe he'd try to keep me sweet if I were free. I'd thought I could bargain with him.
"Some agreement! He put the slave crown on you anyway, didn't he?"
"Yes, but not... It wasn't all the time." I was apologizing for him. I crossed my legs, stared at the knobby shape of my kneecap through my skirt. At least no one else was here.
"It was rape," she said, angrily, and I bent almost double in my chair. I was trembling, and when I spoke my throat hurt like I'd been crying for hours.
"Celes, I don't want to... I want to feel like I had that little bit of control, and—"
"I don't see why you want to blame yourself!" she retorted, and when I looked up finally I saw that she'd set her tea on the windowsill, that she had wrapped her arms around herself the way I always did. Her face looked pinched, contained. "I'm going for a walk," she said, angrily. She wasn't exactly stomping, but she did slam the door harder than she needed to. The silence descended on us like a thick blanket.
"You should go after her," I said to Locke, very calmly. My throat still hurt.
There was a very long silence. "Do you want me to leave?" he asked. "I mean, if you want to be alone, I can go."
"I'll be okay," I said. "She's upset right now. She always goes for walks when she doesn't really want to be alone."
"Terra, do you blame yourself?"
"What? That's not... I meant it like I said it. I was stupid, it was stupid, I just... It wasn't like she thought. I never told him no or anything." I was trying not to remember the parts I remembered, trying to go back to what I'd been thinking – if I'd been thinking – when I told him I'd do anything he wanted. "I was so stupid," I said, softly. "I thought he could act normal." Sometimes he did. Not often. Normal had been when he sat at my vanity and tried on my makeup, and when I laughed and said he looked like a clown he just smiled indulgently and didn't hit me.
"You didn't have much choice," he said, almost a question. I guess he was prompting me to talk, but I didn't think about it at the time.
"I guess not. I mean, it was this way or the slave crown." It felt so bizarre, discussing this as if it were a decision about what type of carrots to plant in the garden. At the time, the decision had felt like a weight on my shoulders, noise in my mind, either option meaning the end of the life I knew. That life was already over by the time it came to that, and I just hadn't realized. "I got to go down to the magitek lab, once, and... I guess it was like when I spoke to Tritoch, you remember?" From the corner of my eye I saw him nod. "That's how Ramuh and Stray and Kirin got free," I said. "And I was accused of sabotage. So Kefka got put in charge of my case, and I was just trying to... I think it's what you call making the best of a bad job." A phrase his grandma had used, I remembered once I said it.
"Terra..." he began, and the pain from his voice seemed to collect in the back of my throat.
"I don't know, maybe Celes is right," I said, trying to be as matter-of-fact about it as I had been before, even though I could feel everything pressing down on me. "I probably was just fooling myself. I mean, either way, he got his way. It's not like I was plotting my escape. I wasn't doing anything, just— getting by, I guess." I glanced at him. He looked the way his voice had sounded. "I never even thought of getting away," I said, my own voice quavering, and I watched the world start to blur. "I never even tried to do anything."
I'm not sure when he got up, but he wrapped his arms around my folded figure, held onto me. "Gods, Terra," I heard him say, and it almost sounded like he could cry too.
"It's okay," I said. "I don't remember much anyway, it's just the fact that it happened, and everything—"
"It's not your fault," he said. "None of it's your fault, love." I nodded. I could tell myself that if I wanted to, but somehow it helped to hear it. I let myself untense, a little, rubbed my face against his sleeve to wipe my eyes, and I felt him start to let go, but only so he could kneel in front of me, hold me by the elbows. "Terra, I am so sorry," he said. "I'm so sorry." His face still looked a way I could only describe as painful, and I couldn't look at his eyes for long.
"Locke, why...?"
"I never even suspected... I mean, I figured I might be pushing too hard for you, making you uncomfortable, but I never really thought of anything like this. And it's ridiculous, because it should have occurred to me at some point in all this time." He shook his head. "Explains a lot," he said. "I'm sorry."
"You mean when you kissed me and I sort of..." He nodded. "Locke, that's..." I still couldn't bring myself to explain, especially not when Celes was probably within shouting distance. "It wasn't that," I said.
"Are you sure?" I nodded. "All right," he said, but he still didn't look convinced. He might even have been right, but I couldn't remember fear at the time. After a moment he let go of me, sat back on his heels. "Listen, you just tell me if I ever do anything that bothers you, because I know I tend to just grab you whenever I see you."
"Locke, it's called hugging," I reminded him, and at that he cracked a smile, which let me do the same. "It's never bothered me. I don't know why, but I'm glad of it. It's fine. I'm fine. I will be, anyway. People need me, right?"
He nodded, looking serious again, but his voice managed to sound light when he said, "I know for a fact that I do." I wasn't sure what to say to that, so I looked down at my hands, and after a moment he added, "Listen, if you're okay for now— are you?" I nodded. "Okay, I'll go see about finding Celes."
"Good," I said. "And tell her I'm sorry."
"What for?" he asked, and I couldn't say 'because of you,' so I just shrugged, and he smiled and said, "Right. Well, hopefully she'll know what we're sorry for."
"Maybe she'll tell us later," I said, even though I already knew why I was sorry. I wasn't sure she knew, but I did, and I'd have to tell her. I'd have to tell them both. He was grinning at the joke, and I reached forward and hugged him awkwardly. His arms went around my waist.
"You know, I promised to stay with you till you got your memory back," he said, quietly. "I promised to protect Celes. I should have promised to protect you too."
"It was too late by that time, Locke," I said. "From that. And I didn't really need much protecting after, did I?"
"Nope. You kicked some tail," he said, and I smiled into his hair. "Would've made me feel better, though," he continued. "Or it'd make me feel better now. I know it's ass-backwards, but it would." He gave me a squeeze and stood. His eyes were suspiciously bright as he looked down at me. "You think you need any protecting now?"
"From mosquitoes?" I offered, and he gave a cracked bark of a laugh.
"I'll do my damnedest," he said.